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PapayaMobile has raised $18 million in venture capital financing, showing the strong appetite for gaming companies, particularly among Asian investors and companies.

China-based Keytone Ventures and existing investor DCM, which has a number of large investments in Japan and China, led the round, bringing total funding to $22 million.

Founded in 2008, Beijing-based PapayaMobile, which also has offices in Menlo Park, Calif., has a social gaming network that hosts mobile games and provides tools for game developers. The company now has more than 15 million users and 350 games.

This is just the latest in trans-Pacific gaming deals. Last week Japan-based GREE snapped up mobile gaming network OpenFeint for $104 million, in February China-based Tencent picked up RiotGames for about $400 million and six months ago Japan-based DeNA acquired ngMoco for $300 million plus $100 million in earn-outs.

Asian gaming companies, which are in many cases powerhouses in their own right, are seeking to expand into Western markets, and also looking to pick up technology that is well suited for their own markets.

A number of U.S. companies are also trying to grab pieces of the fast-growing mobile gaming market, from Zynga to Electronic Arts to Popcap Games.

Like OpenFeint and ngMoco, PapayaMobile connects players across various games and helps promote games across its network. PapayaMobile has tools for developers to help them build their games, as well as monetization tools such as virtual currency and offers marketing and advertising tools.

PapayaMobile opened up its platform to developers last June and has seen a 375% increase in its user base since then.